No presente artigo visamos contribuir do ponto de vista teórico-metodológico com os debates pertinentes à História da historiografia da Sétima Arte nacional, problematizando hermeneuticamente a obra Historiografia clássica do cinema brasileiro: metodologia e pedagogia, do crítico cinematográfico Jean-Claude Bernardet. Como arcabouço teórico-metodológico, nos munimos das reflexões de Michel de Certeau acerca do lugar social, político, econômico e cultural dos pesquisadores da História, sobretudo um de seus elementos primordiais: o “não-dito”, bem como das propostas do teórico alemão Jörn Rüsen no tocante (...) ao método hermenêutico aplicado na produção do conhecimento histórico. (shrink)

O realismo estético é uma doutrina central na estética e na filosofia da arte. Neste ensaio introduzo-a e defendo a sua adopção, considerando algumas das suas motivações principais e incluindo algumas das suas aplicações úteis para outras áreas de pensamento, bem como para a vida prática. Primeiro, avalio algumas das razões para preferirmos o realismo estético, que já discuti noutros lugares (Morais: 2009, 2019). Depois, e aí mais originalmente, sugiro que, para que possa existir um domínio distintamente estético, e (...) para que exista a estética como disciplina filosófica, é necessário aceitar o realismo estético. Finalmente, aponto algumas aplicações para o realismo estético, isto é, algum trabalho útil que esta doutrina faz, não só no domínio da estética mas também noutras áreas de pensamento. -/- Errata: «Pôrque» deveria ler-se «Porquê»; «sensibiliza» deveria ler-se «sensibilia» (latim). (Embora me sejam alheios, estes erros tipográficos são compreensíveis no processo de edição e espero que os leitores os desculpem.). (shrink)

Notre intention dans cet article est de montrer qu’il existe deux versions différentes du souverain bien politique chez Kant et de déterminer laquelle est la plus cohérente avec l’ensemble de sa philosophie pratique. Ayant d’abord soutenu une version forte et étatique du Völkerbund conçu comme un Völkerstadt, Kant s’en éloigne progressivement jusqu’à soutenir une version non étatique de l’ordre juridique et politique international sous la forme d’une association d’États libres. Les arguments d’ordre moral avancés par Kant pour soutenir cette nouvelle (...) version de la Société des Nations ne sont rationnellement acceptables que si nous convenons qu’il a désormais abandonné l’analogie individu / État qui se trouvait pourtant à la base de l’argumentation visant à rendre nécessaire l’institution d’un ordre international. La faillite de l’analogie individu / État annonce que le modèle vers lequel doit s’orienter l’ordre politique international n’est pas l’État de droit coercitif et légal, mais l’idéal de la communauté éthique qui repose sur l’autonomie et l’intention morale des États.The purpose of this article is to determine which of the two representations of the highest political good in Kant’s philosophy is the more consistent with his whole practical philosophy. After having defended a strong version of the highest politicaI good, in which the Völkerbund was more like a Völkerstadt, Kant went on to affirm a non-state version of the international political and juridical order, now conceived as an association of free states. The arguments Kant proposes to ground his new conception of the international political order cannot be very convincing unless we admit that he has definitively abandoned the earlier analogy he made between the individual and the state. The collapsing of this analogy, which he had first proposed in order to justify a legalization of the international political order, shows that the model he has in mind for the highest political good is not the power of the national state but the ideal of an ethical commonwealth which relies only on the autonomy and the moral intentions of the states. (shrink)

This compelling book defends realism concerning the aesthetic—in particular, concerning the aesthetic properties of works of art. Morais lucidly argues that art criticism, when referring to aesthetic properties, is referring not ultimately to the critic’s subjective reactions, but to genuine properties of the works. With a focus on contemporary discussion conducted in the analytic tradition, as well as on arguments by Hume and Kant, this book characterizes the debate in aesthetics and the philosophy of art concerning aesthetic realism, examining (...) attacks on the objectivity of values, the ‘autonomy thesis’, and Hume’s sentimentalism. Considering and defusing scepticism concerning the significance of the ontological debate about aesthetic realism, Morais discusses two powerful attacks on aesthetic realism before defending the doctrine against them and providing a positive realist account of aesthetic properties. (shrink)

O presente artigo busca analisar o acontecimento ditatorial civil militar brasileiro, que ocorreu de 1964 a 1988, sob a ótica da filosofia política de Giorgio Agamben, através de uma investigação dos conceitos chave estudados por este filósofo italiano, como: estado de exceção, _homo sacer_, vida nua e campo. Assim, por meio destes conceitos que serão nossos instrumentos de pesquisa, será iluminado, a partir da reflexão filosófica-política, este fato histórico transcorrido durante vinte e quatro anos e quais reflexos ele gerou para (...) o a redemocratização do Brasil até os dias atuais. (shrink)

Bottom of the Pyramid organizations are the ones that develop a set of capabilities that contribute to create short- and long-term sustainability values inside and outside the boundaries of BoP ecosystems. Capabilities have an important role in BoP organizations’ strategies that aim to solve BoP issues. Notwithstanding its developments, BoP research still lacks theoretical contributions for the analysis of organizations. We suggest special attention to the need of advancing knowledge on capabilities of BoP organizations because this field is scattered and (...) fragmented, misinterpreted, and still underdeveloped in the literature. We oriented our research formulating and seeking answers to our main question on what are the capabilities needed to enable organizations to create sustainability values in BoP ecosystems? We conducted an integrative review of BoP research for the period from 1998 to 2019, and we found 22 key capabilities of BoP organizations. We organized the capabilities into four major categories including BoP Responsible Consumption, BoP Responsible Business Model, BoP Responsible Management, and BoP Responsible Innovation. We advanced propositions and discussions regarding the capabilities and major categories’ popularity, interdependence and combination, short- and long-term temporal functions, sustainability roles, and effectiveness to address BoP issues. Our article organizes the field of capabilities of BoP organizations; advances contributions and implications for management, organizations, and policymaking; and opens fruitful avenues for future research. (shrink)

Ce collectif en hommage au défunt Pierre Laberge est divisé en cinq parties, qui renvoient respectivement à cinq thèmes fondamentaux de la pensée kantienne: l'éthique, l'esthétique, la politique, la philosophie théorique, l'anthropologie et l'axiologie.

O presente artigo se presta a analisar o verdadeiro sentido de filosofia para Leo Strauss, como a condição de possibilidade de ir além da opinião, alçando o verdadeiro conhecimento. Sendo assim, ela visa responder às questões fundamentais do ser humano, colocando os objetos humanos individuais em relação ao todo, que é a natureza. Uma das formas de responder às questões fundamentais é o direito natural, que, como meta, deve fundamentar as leis e instituições convencionadas na sociedade.

O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar a caracterização que Hannah Arendt e Hans Jonas fazem da técnica moderna em suas visões da dimensão do homo faber, bem como suas críticas ao mundo da técnica no horizonte da modernidade, mostrando suas convergências e diferenças quanto a isso. A partir dessas críticas arendtianas e jonasianas, procuramos mostrar como ambos podem contribuir para uma ética e uma política baseada na ideia de responsabilidade pelas futuras gerações.

Este pequeno texto é uma singela homenagem que dedico para o meu exprofessor da graduação em Filosofia e meu orientador no mestrado em Ética e Epistemologia da UFPI. Trata-se de um texto rememorativo e de agradecimentos pela convivência e aprendizagem que tive com o professor Dr. José Sérgio D. da Fonseca. A grata oportunidade de conhecer o professor Dr. José Sérgio ocorreu-me por volta do ano 2009 em uma disciplina de seminário, na qual o professor José Sérgio ministrou um curso (...) sobre filosofia da mente, se minha memória não falha. (shrink)

Aggregating snippets from the semantic memories of many individuals may not yield a good map of an individual’s semantic memory. The authors analyze the structure of semantic networks that they sampled from individuals through a new snowball sampling paradigm during approximately 6 weeks of 1-hr daily sessions. The semantic networks of individuals have a small-world structure with short distances between words and high clustering. The distribution of links follows a power law truncated by an exponential cutoff, meaning that most words (...) are poorly connected and a minority of words has a high, although bounded, number of connections. Existing aggregate networks mirror the individual link distributions, and so they are not scale-free, as has been previously assumed; still, there are properties of individual structure that the aggregate networks do not reflect. A simulation of the new sampling process suggests that it can uncover the true structure of an individual’s semantic memory. (shrink)

Este artigo aborda o processo de legitimação da umbanda, uma religião afro-brasileira, presente hoje em todo Brasil e mesmo no exterior. Diferentes intérpretes apontam que essa religião surgiu no Sudeste brasileiro nas primeiras décadas do século XX. As práticas nominadas “macumba” e associadas aos negros podem ser pensadas como a origem da umbanda. O estigma do feitiço, atrelado às práticas religiosas afro-brasileiras desde o Brasil colônia, também foi a ela transposto. No intuito de afirmá-la como religião, alguns grupos buscaram uma (...) aproximação com o espiritismo kardecista, visando um certo “embranquecimento” de suas práticas e definindo-a como “genuinamente” brasileira. Outros grupos preferiram enaltecer sua herança africana. Este artigo focaliza, assim, as vias escolhidas por diferentes grupos, especialmente, na primeira metade do século XX, para afirmar como religião práticas antes consideradas feitiço. Para tanto, apresento uma leitura crítica da literatura que aborda a conformação da umbanda, bem como seu processo de legitimação enquanto religião. Além disso, analiso textos produzidos pelos próprios umbandistas. (shrink)

Much more than their machinic reality, current iterations of AI rely on imagined divisions of human and non-human properties and skills that have genealogical ties to colonization. For this reason, research efforts have recently been made to historicize these imaginaries, connecting them to colonial ideals that delegate black and brown colonized people into the realm of the non-human. Atanasoski and Vora (Surrogate humanity. Race, robots and the politics of technological futures, Duke, Durham and London, 2019) have called this a “surrogate (...) humanity”, where narratives of autonomous technologies function to disappear precisely the formerly colonized peoples that are enveloped in its production process. At the same time, the gendered and racialized roots of this maternal figure represents an opportunity to uncover and critique the invisibilization of embodied resources necessary to produce AI, precarious bodies labouring to produce algorithmic infrastructures in a manner that can be considered in a genealogy of carework and reproduction. These genealogies complicate the detachment suggested by the surrogate figure and go beyond it to proclaim a more generative function of the relationship between the black maternal figure and AI. The article analyses Tabita Rezaire’s multi-media artwork Sugar Walls Teardom to think through decolonial and queer renderings of the black female bodies upon which technological imaginaries rest, to extend beyond AI surrogacy and towards notions of kinship, care and world-making by producing an AI aesthetics that is relational, embodied, and celebratory of other ways of liveness. (shrink)

O objetivo geral desse artigo consiste em analisar a obra “ O nascimento da tragédia”, escrita por Friedrich Nietzsche em 1872, destacando sua compreensão sobre a cultura. Nela, foram tecidas análises iniciais sobre a cultura grega conceituando-se o papel do apolíneo e do dionisíaco como impulsos estéticos e cósmicos que originavam a tragédia; de Eurípedes e Sócrates como causadores de sua destruição devido à racionalidade intrínseca a um novo juízo artístico. Assim, as criações modernas emergiam constituídas por valores socráticos que (...) buscavam a verdade e não mais a experiência trágica. Como consequência, tem-se a decadência da cultura do homem grego e também do alemão do século XIX. Sua salvação dependeria da construção de uma nova cultura autêntica capaz de retornar a arte trágica grega, pois o filósofo a compreendida como justificação estética da existência, ilustrando a vida e elaborando-a a partir de diferentes máscaras. Dentre as soluções propostas, Nietzsche cita obra de Wagner como possibilidade de reavivamento dos impulsos apolíneo e dionisíaco por meio da música que daria novos sentidos a cultura ao assumir seu papel de renovação. Observa-se que o ponto essencial tratado nesta obra é que a única justificativa para a existência é a estética. (shrink)

Freud propôs uma teoria da personalidade a partir do estabelecimento da psicanálise. Nosso objetivo é percorrer alguns de seus primeiros textos, os quais foram escritos em conjunto com Breuer, buscando delimitar o que Freud compreendeu a respeito de alterações da personalidade, tal como a múltipla personalidade. Este fenômeno ganhou um importante destaque no século XIX, gerando discussões no campo da psicologia e da filosofia, uma vez que implicava ruptura da unidade da personalidade. Freud, por sua vez, ofereceu uma interpretação original (...) de tais alterações à luz de suas investigações sobre a histeria. Para explicar os desdobramentos da personalidade, Freud focou numa teoria da defesa, colocando o recalque (_Verdrängung_) como um mecanismo modelo para compreender a personalidade e suas patologias. (shrink)

Este texto procura analisar as noções de espaço e tempo kantianos na epistemologia schopenhaueriana com o objetivo de compreender o conceito de representação em Schopenhauer a partir da noção de fenômeno em Kant.

Este artigo tem como objetivo explicitar a noção de consciência em Sartre, explorando o modo como se dá a relação entre ontologia e fenomenologia na filosofia de Sartre.

Résumé Nous entendons démontrer dans cet article l’importance souvent méconnue que revêt dans la morale kantienne l’analogie entre la nature sensible et la nature morale. Nous y soutiendrons en effet que sans la présence d’une telle analogie, il serait impossible pour le jugement pratique de déterminer pour des cas particuliers quelles sont les actions qu’autorise l’impératif catégorique. A cet égard, la typique du jugement pur pratique s’avérera déterminante en ceci qu’elle fournira à la loi morale le prolongement intuitif nécessaire pour (...) que soient subsumées sous elle des actions particulières. Bien qu’elle esquisse un pont entre la nature et la liberté, la typique ne saurait se réduire, comme le suggère néanmoins Yovel, à n’être qu’une forme inférieure de la synthèse achevée de la moralité et du bonheur, telle qu’on la retrouve dans le concept du souverain bien. Son caractère incontournable pour le jugement moral s’illustre en outre dans le recours systématique à ce principe par Kant lui-même lors de la discussion et de la solution des quatre dilemmes moraux présentés dans les Fondements de la métaphysique des mœurs. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar o conceito de Vontade a partir do estudo detalhado do livro II de O mundo como vontade e representação , no qual Schopenhauer explicita sua Metafísica da Natureza. Para este fim, nós analisaremos a relação entre Vontade e Representação como dois lados constitutivos e inseparáveis do mundo, bem como a ideia de finalismo da Vontade.

Este artigo é o resultado de uma atividade do PET-Filosofia denominada Cine-PET. Nesta atividade são exibidos alguns filmes e depois há uma discussão filosófica sobre o conteúdo dos mesmos. Neste filme – La vita é bella –, foram analisadas as idéias de otimismo, ilusão e representação para o querer-viver perpassadas pelo filme à luz da idéia de Schopenhauer sobre a Vontade como a verdadeira essência do mundo. A Vontade, para Schopenhauer, é caracterizada por ser um impulso cego, desejante e insaciável, (...) que por isso, constitui o sofrimento e as dores de todos os seres do mundo. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to discuss the transcendental status of Kant's moral philosophy. Despite what is usually thought among scholars, we intend to demonstrate that morality for Kant is not part of transcendental philosophy. We shall at first recall the reasons that have driven Kant to separate morality from the transcendental philosophy. Kant's position seems both firm and clear: morality, although involving a priori concepts such as the moral law, is not a transcendantal knowledge because its major concept, (...) the will, is not pure enough; it refers somehow to experience. On the other hand, after considering the positions of renowned scholars such as Gueroult, Delbos, and Höffe, who claim that Kant's morality became partially or totally transcendantal since the writing of the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, we suggest that Kant had then found the right way to establish on a critical basis a future metaphysics of morals. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to understand the transition from a constitutionalism of the common – already proposed previously – to the field of cosmotechnical struggles, in the sense that it would no longer be possible to think and constitute a cosmopolitical project except from them. To this end, what is proposed, based on the limits and crises of State and the constitutionalism that accompanies it, seek the construction of cosmopolitical projects through the resizing of constitutionalism, proposing this in (...) the work from the perspective of the common and human rights, it is essential constitute the common beyond the limits of constitutionalism – state-based or not – since the constitution of the common today takes place in a field in dispute over techno-political practices through cosmotechnical struggles and processes of insurrection, against the backdrop of the impacts of globalization neoliberalism and the disruption of the digital age. (shrink)

O objetivo é analisar algumas interpretações conexas que giram em torno da tensão entre duas concepções da díke em Édipo Rei. Como as tragédias ocupavam um papel privilegiado na pólis ateniense, pode-se dizer que as exibições e festividades trágicas eram uma verdadeira instituição política. Não por acaso se pode afirmar que as peças apontavam para um conflito entre os valores aristocráticos tradicionais e a nova ordem democrática. Tal tensão pode ser evidenciada na investigação promovida por Édipo que se manifesta em (...) duas formas de justiça, uma de origem divina e outra, humana. Para tanto, este texto, em um primeiro momento, descreve a relação entre tragédia e pólis; após essa introdução, assinala o conflito que se desenhava na democracia e que se reflete nas tragédias; por fim, examina a possível articulação racional entre a díke tradicional e sua contrapartida humana. (shrink)

O texto visa tratar de uma problemática da Teoria do Conhecimento em correspondência com a Educação. Os problemas que surgem da relação entre o indivíduo pensante e o objeto de seu pensamento (como o solipsismo, a reflexão monológica e o dogmatismo) marcam as bases da produção filosófica tratada a partir de Kant em sua obra "Crítica da Razão Pura" (1787). A prova sobre os juízos sintéticos a priori leva Kant a formular um sistema filosófico, cujo método transcendental se apoia na (...) sensibilidade e no entendimento do sujeito sobre os conceitos. A fenomenologia de Husserl se fortaleceu a partir da filosofia de Kant, e sobre seu prisma existencial-hermenêutico, tratou do problema da dialética do conhecimento a partir do conceito de mundo da vida. O apriorismo subjetivista de Kant e o idealismo transcendental da fenomenologia de Husserl são criticados, atualmente, pelo filósofo Jürgen Habermas. Pela teoria da competência comunicativa, Habermas instaura novas bases para a relação sujeito-objeto e para a construção do conhecimento. O ser humano é um sujeito de potencialidade comunicativa, que desenvolve um novo conceito de emancipação, pela razão comunicativa pela qual a linguagem é considerada na sua dimensão de práxis social. A perspectiva habermasiana é bastante relevante para a educação escolar e para o desenvolvimento humano. (shrink)

O presente texto tem por intuito analisar e compreender o sentido da noção de necessidade elaborada por Espinosa ao longo da _Ética I_, pois ainda que não seja explicitamente definida em momento algum, ela permeia todo o percurso argumentativo do _De Deo_ e, portanto, sua compreensão é essencial para o bom entendimento não apenas da primeira parte, mas da _Ética_ como um todo. Para tanto, buscamos demonstrar através da distinção entre Natureza naturante e Natureza naturada a univocidade de sentido do (...) substantivo ‘necessidade’, bem como a equivocidade do adjetivo ‘necessária’. (shrink)

This article shows that the events of hypermodernity are permeated by a special form of manifestation of the sacred. Be the spectrum of Jewish-Christian formation chasing our western experience, whether by confrontation between great religious powers that produces terror and needs to be tamed by a god to come. Thus, we turn to Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gianni Vattimo and Jacques Derrida to position ourselves with this new reality. Concluding, they are photographs of a secularized Western in which man claims for the (...) sacred composition of a sense of life. (shrink)

Este texto sinaliza o itinerário da fenomenologia à metafísica através da mediação da experiência estética, tal como a interpretamos na obra de Mikel Dufrenne. Deste modo, procuramos mostrar que a vivência estética comporta um "impulso" que a lança na demanda de uma radicalidade que configura um horizonte de "absoluto", superando a imanência. The present text signals the itinerary from phenomenology to metaphysics, mediated by aesthetic experience, as we interpret it in Mikel Dufrennes work. Thus, we intend to show that aesthetic (...) experience encompasses an impulse leading it on the demand of a radicality, which constitutes an horizon of absolute, overcoming the immanence. (shrink)

continent. 1.1 (2011): 22-25. The Author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento do Ensino Superior), Brazil. From the multifarious subdivisions of semiotics, be they naturalistic or culturalistic, the realm of semiotics of value is a ?eld that is getting more and more attention these days. Our entire political and economic systems are based upon structures of symbolic representation that many times seem not only to embody monetary value but also to determine it. The connection between monetary (...) and linguistic exchanges is self-evident: the former requires the latter and develops in direct relation to it. Creative experimentation and design of digital systems of value exchange are blossoming on the web. Dr. Gilson Schwartz, an economist turned media theorist and professor at the University of São Paulo, adopted the concept of Iconomics, originally created by Michael Kaplan, an author concerned with the linguistics of economic value. Empowering local communities and unlocking new levels of value creation and representation via digital technologies are the main goals of Dr. Schwartz’s projects, aiming at the re-designing of our relationship to the economic value of imagination and the social control of property. Schwartz is Assistant Professor at the School of Communication and Arts of the University of São Paulo, a former Chief Economist at BankBoston, Brazil and Advisor to the President of the National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES). FURTHER READING: Kaplan, Michael. “Iconomics: The Rhetoric of Speculation.” Public Culture . 15.3 (2003): 477-493. Renata Lemos-Morais: You have recently produced and directed a short documentary about Creative Currencies in Latin America. Could you tell us a bit about its process and its findings? Gilson Schwartz: The “Creative Currencies” project is a work-in-progress platform which unfolds as an action research agenda connected both to the production of audiovisual content and the development of social currency software. The initiative dates back to 2003 when I led an experimental project supported by the Presidency of Brazil. At that time, we issued paper currency in a small, touristic village in the Northeast Region which stimulated local cultural projects. But it was only in 2009 that the Central Bank of Brazil acknowledged “social currencies” as a legitimate economic agenda, calling for more debate at the I Financial Inclusion Forum. This year, the monetary authorities organized a second forum that also opened the room to discussions on mobile payment systems and new perspectives on poverty alleviation via State subsidies. The Ministry of Culture funded the “Creative Currencies” project in 2009-2010 and our next stage in this discovery process is to be supported by the National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES). In short, there is genuine interest among public officials in different areas and public funding for social currencies is on the rise in Brazil. However, after all these years we are still at a very early stage of research and practice. Some of the most successful initiatives (such as Banco Palmas) actually evolved out of local monetary creation to become correspondent banking operations for commercial banks and other financial groups. After eight years of price stability and social inclusion, Brazil stands out as a major opportunity for social experimentation, even the Grameen Bank is now entering the Brazilian market and many NGOs are geared towards different forms of entrepreneurialism in the base of the pyramid, riding solidarity economic models, microfinance and microcredit for local development. It is yet to be seen, however, whether these developments are just one more stage of “bankarization”, that is to say, an extension of regular banking services or actually a new form of social and symbolic self-determination at the local level. So far, the Central Bank of Brazil is open to new forms of credit and local finance as long as they are strictly territorial and very close to barter among the poor. In other words, whether the process of monetary creation could be made to fit an open source paradigm is yet to be seen. Community banking and social currencies might as well end up as just another channel for access to and use of banking services. The “Creative Currencies” project aims at promoting the discussion of more fundamental issues, such as the limits of central banking, the prospects for local financial development and the possibility of creating and managing financial icons as cultural assets. The purpose of this project is to produce short documentaries that will bear testimony to this evolving regulatory framework while inducing more discussion about the fundamental iconomic issues concealed in the process of money and wealth creation. RLM: What new potential is there in applying digital technologies to currency creation? GS: Globalization is a result of the virtualization of money, that is, the overcoming of illusions such as the “gold standard”. Money is an icon created by institutions, not on supposedly natural or material foundations but out of political and financial interests. The “dollar standard” is an outstanding evidence of this phenomenon and Kaplan´s paper, the first to use the expression “iconomics”, insists on the rhetoric and semiotic effects associated to a supposedly scientific model of money creation and management. This is a fundamental change that was perceived and discussed much before the digitalization of the world by unorthodox economists such as John Maynard Keynes since the early 20th century. The digitalization of global financial flows accelerated this immateriality and the creation of the Euro was yet another evidence of the political foundations of currencies. The banking establishment, however, is keen on the idea that scientific formulae hold the key to sound money creation. Keynesianism has been repeatedly associated to “inflationism” while the supposedly sound monetary policies of the Orthodoxy serve well the political and financial interests of a technocratic elite. Corporate media also serve this fictitious depiction of the monetary process despite the cyclical bust of monetary rules and financial regulations. The internet, however, has created numerous opportunities for the disintermediation in industries such as film, music and commodities. There is no reason to doubt that the financial industry can also be transformed by Peer-to-Peer (P2P) infrastructures. Money is media as well. Credit is but confidence. Once people realize that the distributed computing power of networks can also be the platform to weave new monetary and credit operations, there is room for grassroots emancipation out of the established owners of monetary institutions. So far, however, there has been a privatization of monetary management and there is not a clear path or model for the emergent (P2P) property democratization that is inherent to the internet. Digital assets, however, clearly have an inherent potential to escape central control and proprietary regulatory frameworks. RLM: How are social networks transforming the ways in which we exchange value? Do you believe that online influence and reputation might be translated into a new kind of currency? GS: The foundation for social currencies as envisaged by solidarity economics is the territory. Authorities are willing to concede local monetary creation as long as it is restricted to poor neighborhoods, as a proxy to barter. In this relevant but limited context, reputation, personal knowledge and informal ties form the matrix of local or “proximity” finance which are expected to keep credit and leverage to a sustainable level. Anything beyond that should and would lead to an integration of local finance into the established banking system. However, inasmuch as the internet promotes virtual territories and reputation is now subject to all sorts of digital manipulation and stardom becomes an everyday cultural process among teenagers and elders alike, the territorial “foundation” is substituted for more complex patterns of solidarity, cooperation and exchange that reach beyond the physical territory and even the “human.” Digital assets embody knowledge, technology, cultural and educational values that are exchanged at a global scale beyond the control of democratic States (Chinese-like intervention is the exception, not the rule). Hacktivism is unstoppable and so is monetary hacktivism. Especially in the Third World, mobile communications fast became conveyors of money transfers and other appropriation strategies. Banking and telecom sectors already battle for the control of these emerging markets and, as a matter of fact, have so far contributed to the containment of these processes. Governments serve these moguls and have usually adopted a wait-and-see attitude. If open source hardware and grassroots social movements combine to challenge these proprietary battles, then social networks may evolve into new forms of social capital and thus form the ground on which to design and implement social currencies. The global financial crisis, as well as the dollar demise, are an event of such a proportion that social networks may open the path for emancipator subjects to seize the opportunity. RLM: What are some of the social experiments that you think are revolutionizing the way in which value is exchanged? GS: There is a broad evolution of economic systems towards the valuation of intangible assets such as knowledge, reputation and sustainability. There are many examples of local as well as global events that call the traditional systems of exchange into question, from carbon credits to educational bonuses, digital barter frameworks and locally based solidarity and fair trade networks. These emerging examples, no matter how different in nature or scale, represent a challenge to the traditional value creation schemes and theories which are based on use and exchange value, supply and demand. This is not to say that utility and labour or scarcity are to be totally dismissed, but there is now an emerging perception that value is also a function of behavioral codes, symbolic patterns and the energy of institutional frameworks. The plasticity of digital platforms is relevant insofar as intellectual property becomes the central source of value creation. But when you discuss the property rights of public goods such as the environment or basic social rights (of minorities or localities), then a new paradigm seems to emerge. RLM: Are gaming and online storytelling digital practices that might have an impact on the way new currencies are created and developed? GS: “Play money” has been one of the early and most intriguing phenomena associated to the diffusion of virtual worlds. These virtual currencies have also been prone to “boom and bust” dynamics, speculation and pure theft (Second Life scams were common and led to “intervention” by the owners of the game). Storytelling is a major source of value, that is, the value of attention and the markets for audience. There are plenty of private monies created and managed by corporate entertainment groups, telecom operators (via mobile virtual network operators) and marketing frameworks. The casino economy, as already depicted by Keynes and other unorthodox economists, is always storytelling about future states of the world, confidence building and leverage of animal spirits. The novelty of current events is not the fictitious nature of any form of capital, but the potential for digital democratization of controls over the imaginary nature of value creation. But this is just a potential, a possibility, a figment that more often than not is appropriated by centralized and opaque private powers. The game industry is a testbed for new connections between storytelling and money creation. RLM: Monetary value was originally connected to the scarcity of precious metals, such as gold. Our entire monetary system seems therefore to function according to a logic of scarcity. Do you believe it is possible to reverse this logic into a logic of abundance? GS: The gold standard was a fiction itself, the “scarcity” is always produced by institutions that regulate confidence and access to credit. The key issue is not to fabricate abundance, but to question the institutions which produce scarcity out of any standard, gold or whatever. Central banks are at the service of private banks in the creation and management of scarcity. RLM: The promise that nanotechnology holds for our future is one of radical abundance (or so say transhumanists). The possibility of creating any kind of material substance through nanoengineering seems each day more feasible. What would this possibility entail in terms of systems of value exchange? GS: Nanotechnology, environmental concerns and grassroots appropriation of distributed knowledge are the frontiers of a new horizon of energy creation and management. Social groups in charge of managing scarcity for the sake of wealth and power concentration must be held accountable for the destruction of our future. Once this key political conundrum is accounted for, new systems of value exchange and even a non-mercantile society will come into existence. Revolutionary theorists such as Marx envisaged transformation via the extreme clash of contradictions between capital and labour. This approach has never led to a change in the systemic logic of scarcity for the sake of social control. We are once again facing the threshold of large scale societal change, but the outcome of the current crisis should come from our imagination, not from yet another paradox of abundance and scarcity. As long as we remain attached to the materiality of value, the illusion of freedom will but reinforce the massive manipulation of necessity. RLM: What do you think is the role of crowdfunding in this context? GS: Crowdsourcing as well as crowdfunding are examples of the peer to peer opportunities that come along with distributed computer power. However, the power structure behind wealth and scarcity creation may or may not be changed by crowd management. But it should not be taken at face value, so to speak. The stock market of course is an early form of crowdfunding without calling into question the proprietary framework of the companies offering their investment projects to the market. Any market is a form of crowdsourcing, that is to say, of distributed forms of supply and demand matchmaking. The wealth of networks, however, depends on the contractual ecosystem, the institutional framework, the channeling of social imagination, not on the purely quantitative distribution of bids and offers. I see economics as supply, demand and code. Once you have access to the code, once openness becomes part of the game, then there is a chance of crowd behavior becoming collective intelligence and sustainable imagination. RLM: Is the development of digital currencies headed towards a pluralistic ecology in which many micro currency systems co-exist, or is it penetrating the mainstream monetary system? If it is affecting the mainstream financial system, what would be its effect in the long-term? GS: The same issue is at stake both at local and global levels. The global system is, as a matter of fact, an unstable ecosystem of “micro currencies” whereas the dollar has so far exerted an overwhelming influence. Local currencies and private monies coexist with national currencies only to the extent that the Central Bank admits, for instance, that grassroots monetary emissions remain territorial and strictly connected to poverty. However, the question of how new developments in digital technologies and nanotechnologies might alter not only our current monetary systems but also our understanding of value in itself, is still an open question. (shrink)

O artigo pretende articular a tese de Strauss de que o Direito Natural é defensável, tendo em vista sua necessidade. Isso porque, para sustentação de um direito além do positivo deve haver uma instância paradigmática, que é o Natural. Dessa forma, Strauss irá tentar rechaçar o historicismo e o relativismo, desconstruindo a teoria de Weber, e sustentando a possibilidade do Direito Natural, como superior e fundador do Direito Positivo.